I have this spreadsheet I use as a call sheet for all of my clients and prospects. It allows me to know very quickly when to follow up with who, and why. It’s a great tool, yet my energy around it is often negative.

I reflected on this a bit yesterday and today, and I believe it has to do with conditioning. Over the past few years of using it, I’ve often felt like I was “behind” on my follow up calls on the spreadsheet. For any given day, I would have several calls that did not get made or emails that did not get sent, and they would build up as a backlog. So I typically related to that list as if I was playing catch-up with it. And over time, I’ve conditioned myself to feel negative (stress, resentment, overwhelmed, etc.) when I think about or use that list.

Today I will come up with a plan to break that conditioning. To somehow radically change how I relate to that list. To make structural changes to how I use it that work better for me. Possibly even get rid of it and replace it with another solution (yikes!). This may not be completed today, and it may take several tries before I find something that works better. But I’m committed to breaking the current pattern, whatever it takes.

Today I did another Integrity Day and here’s what I learned:

1. My tendency is to get very rigid about my plans. For example, at the beginning of the 4 hours, I planned out what I wanted to do. As I worked that plan, I discovered additional tasks that needed to be done but weren’t a part of the original plan. I felt resentment towards those new tasks but they put me “behind schedule.”
2. I skipped my meditation in the morning because I felt like I didn’t have time. But when I noticed my resentment and resistance during the first half of Integrity Day, I decided to sit quietly for five minutes and center myself. That’s when I had my awareness about how I was relating to my plan (#1 above). And I experienced a shift that gave the second half of Integrity Day a completely different feel than the first half. And all it took was five minutes.
3. At the end of Integrity Day, I came up with the idea to sketch out my plan in more detail next time. When the plan lives in my head, it seems very clear cut and simple. When I bring it out of my head through the doing of it, that’s when the subtleties and unexpected details appear. Many of those things can be anticipated by getting the plan out of my head and onto paper before I even begin. Couple that with a flexibility that comes from feeling centered, and I think I have a recipe for Integrity Day bliss. 

I will do this for my next Integrity Day on Monday.

How funny that I realized last week just how important it was for me to have a productive Monday…

Today the power went out and is not due to be repaired until 10 PM tonight. So I spent the morning cleaning up and going through some piles of paperwork. But it amazes me how dependent I am on electricity to feel productive. Or to say it another way, the types of tasks I judge as productive tend to require electricity.

This brought into focus the idea of life harmony, and how do I see the different parts of my life as being integrated or not.

(Some background: Lots of people talk about life balance but I find the word “balance” can be disempowering in that it implies a single precarious point, a static state of balance, which can be disrupted easily. I emphasize “life harmony” in the work that I do with my clients because harmony is synergistic and allows for change and flow.)

So what I did was intentionally view my life as a whole, not competing pieces. Big deal if I could not make phone calls or work on my computer. There are other parts of my life that integrate with those things, and today is an opportunity to focus on those.

So there are two lessons/insights for me:

1. I can expand my sense of what “productivity” means by looking to intangibles like my relationships and my feelings. For example, visiting with a friend is productive; meditating to quiet my mind and cultivate peace is productive.
2. I easily lose sight of how the different parts of my life are connected, but I can get that perspective back pretty easily, too. And when I do see my life as a harmony of interconnected parts, I feel more peaceful and more productive.

Dear Universe,

I invite you in all of your varied forms to send me:

• Opportunities to serve the world in the way that creates the most value for as many people as possible in the way that they want it.
• Wisdom to perceive these opportunities when I create and encounter them, and wisdom to identify my role in how best to serve.
• Resources, both internally and externally, to take action for the highest and best good of everyone and everything involved (including myself).

This is an open invitation, and I let go of attachment to and expectations of what I think this will or won’t look like.

Peace & Passion,
Curtis
——–
Curtis G. Schmitt
Turn On to Life! Coach
203-659-6636 | 610-696-3731
http://www.TurnOnToLife.com

Today I was reflecting on the fact that for over a year an a half, I’ve been successfully making a living from my own business. I pay my bills, I save, I invest, I donate to charity, I have play money, I travel, etc.

I focus so much on growth, I forget what an accomplishment this is. And it’s easy for me to get myopic and think that things are not going well if my business isn’t growing.

I am seeing a real opportunity to control my focus and create a more positive experience of life. In the next few days and weeks, I intend to add two new rituals to my life:

1. I will reaffirm an acknowledgment practice I started a few years ago and stopped. Specifically, I will document my success, big and small.
2. I will being a list of “Evidence of Joy” in my life. On this list I will capture as many moments of joy as I am conscious of experiencing.

Today I was feeling down. I didn’t really notice until towards the end of the day. Kind of like a sadness, a low energy, a “who cares?” attitude.

It was a long week, I didn’t sleep well on any given night, so I was tired. And I think there was some grieving energy that needed to be released, too. There have been some changes in my life recently, and I think there’s still some letting go that is happening.

Also, I realized this week how important my Mondays and Fridays are to me. I tend to group my coaching calls with clients on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. This gives me Monday and Friday to work on project-type work that requires bigger chunks of time and focus. What I realized this week (because I was traveling on Monday) is how important both days are to my energy and feeling of momentum.

A productive Monday starts my week off strong. I feel good going into Tuesday knowing that I’ve accomplished so many important things already. And a productive Friday closes my week off strong. I feel good taking the weekend off for rest and rejuvenation.

This week, I didn’t have my productive Monday and instead of accepting that and being present to that reality, I resisted and tried to squeeze in my Monday all week long. So although it was a tough week, I’m happy I’m now conscious of all of this. Now I can set up boundaries (for myself and others) to protect Mondays and Fridays; and I can adjust my expectations and intentions in weeks when Monday or Friday isn’t available to me for project work.

This morning I’m noticing a pull inside me between what I want to do today and what I feel I “have to” do.

Why does something feel like an obligation, a “have to”? What creates that feeling in me? Here’s what I notice:

First, there’s a prediction that there’s no joy in what I’m about to do. To me, this illustrates a lack of presence in what I’m doing. When I’m present in what I’m doing, there tends to be joy. And when there’s joy in what I’m doing, I tend to be present. When an action is all about some future result and I lose the present, it feels like a “have to” do something I don’t want to do in order to get a result that I want.

Second, there’s a lack of a feeling of enrollment or investment in the result of what I’m about to do. Sometimes it’s that I don’t believe I will get a result I want and value (”this’ll never work”). Other times it’s that I simply don’t value the result enough to warrant the effort (”why do I have to go through all this just to get that?”).

Third, there’s a perspective that I didn’t choose what I’m about to do. This can be an explicit feeling that someone else is “forcing” me to do it. They’ve ordered or asked me to do something, and I feel like I can’t say no. Or it can be an internal judgment that’s “forcing” me to do something. For example, it’s the right thing to do or it’s what experts tell me I should do.

It seems pretty straight-forward then that the way to turn a “have to” into a “want to” is to make it more enjoyable by being present in the doing, focus on why the results are important to me, and fully own my choice to do it. I will play with this recipe today.

Today I discussed with a client the importance of “clocking out.” How there is a freedom in defining a clear boundary for personal time.

Clocking out can be literal, i.e. when you clock out from work at the end of the day. Or it can be figurative, especially for people like myself who are self-employed and set their own hours.

This is something I’ve been experiencing in these 100 Days of Peaceful Productivity. When I schedule a time to “clock out” for the day, I notice two things:

1. After I clock out, I feel free to relax. There are less feelings of “I should be doing this” and I can be present in whatever it is I am doing. There is no guilt about not working.
2. I’m actually more productive during the day before I clock out than I am on days I do not set a time to clock out. When I know that I will have “me time” at the end of the day, I can be fully present in the work that I am doing. There’s less procrastination, less getting distracted.

And I’ve actually noticed a third important effect. It almost doesn’t matter when I clock out. It could be 5 PM or 9 PM. The power for me is in the setting of the boundary. Knowing that there is a time dedicated to rest and rejuvenation. Taking myself seriously enough. It’s self-respect, self-love.

I intend to set a clock out time each day during the remainder of these 100 Days.

I did another Integrity Day today, and it was quite different. I’ve done dozens of Integrity Days over the years, and this was the first time I felt so relaxed and chilled out.

There was a deep trust that what I intended to do would get done. I’ve been reflecting on this all day, and I think a big part of it was a kind of letting go. I think I let go of my picture of how and when the tasks would get done. In it’s place was a calm knowing that they would get done.

I’m not sure how this shift happened, and I’ll be paying attention to my “chill factor” in future Integrity Days.

Last night I was reflecting on the events of the day and I thought about two particularly powerful coaching calls I had with clients. And I realized that productivity is more than just completing tasks, more than just checking off items on a list.

I’d made a huge difference in the lives of two people. Up until last night, I’d never really thought of that as productivity. But productivity is about achieving your intended results, as I teach in my teleclass. Making a difference in people’s lives is one of my clearest intentions.

It’s opened a whole new arena of exploration for me in these 100 Days…